~ the blog of erotica author dylan cross

Amazon and FacebooKK–our two best friends (and worst enemies)

In any endeavor, we have to be ready to accept change. Those who don’t prepare for it, or stubbornly refuse to accept it, risk becoming obsolete or outdated.

For erotic authors, two huge parts of what we do are Amazon and Facebook. Disturbingly, both are showing trends of restricting, censoring or otherwise thwarting our efforts to maintain our livelihood.

Amazon has a long-standing history of being fickle and wishy-washy. Their guidelines are deliberately written to be vague, giving them the ability to censor anyone, at any time, for any reason. However, they’ve recently increased the scope of their censorship, now scrutinizing existing titles which have already been accepted and are part of the erotica community.

Facebook, also, has never been particularly author-friendly. Over the past couple of weeks, though, Facebook member (including myself) have seen a drastic increase in the following:

Accounts being locked due to “identity” issues. To regain access to the account, the member is asked to identify various friends in tagged photos. In my case, the tagged photos included: a group of dogs looking out of a doorway; a historic stone chapel; and a stack of boxes in a warehouse.

Inability to send invites to events or pages. A dialogue states that “once more friends accept, your ability to invite will return”… but, even after more friends accept, the invite remains disabled.

Censorship of non-pornographic images and content.

At some point, authors will have no choice but to pursue other avenues which won’t tamper with their livelihood. Options such as Google Plus and Smashwords, which have been ignored by the community at large, now must be considered at least as backup options.